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Course: The Seeing America Project > Unit 6
Lesson 4: 1900-1960- Shrady and Casey, Ulysses S. Grant Memorial
- Public art, politics, and the banishing of Civic Virtue
- An artifact of racism: a Connecticut Klan robe
- Ben Shahn, The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti
- Diego Rivera, Man Controller of the Universe
- Horace Pippin's Mr. Prejudice
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An artifact of racism: a Connecticut Klan robe
The Ku Klux Klan's robe, housed in the Amistad Center for Art and Culture, reveals a dark part of Connecticut's history. The Klan, a white supremacist group, was not just a southern phenomenon but was also active in the north. The robe, a mass-produced symbol of terror, reminds us of the struggles African Americans and immigrants faced. The Klan's influence was amplified by D.W. Griffith's film, "The Birth of a Nation," which also sparked activism against racial injustice. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- At3:48, the figure on the far right, looks like he/she is Turing her head to the left kinda creepy. Is that another sign about the fate of The Dogwood Tree?(2 votes)
- That is a lynched person(1 vote)
- At5:10the show what looks like the left side of the garment. I see these brownish stains. Do you know what the could of come from?
P.S. My first thought of them was that they may be coffee stains. But that didn’t seem right.(1 vote)- The robe had apparently been in storage for a long time. It was also made, as was mentioned in the video, cheaply. If you've ever gone to a store that sells old paperback books and found one that is more than 40 years old, you'll notice how discolored it has become. I'm assuming that the same sort of thing happens to cheap cotton cloth stored for a long time as happens to cheap books on shelves.(2 votes)
- Wait so why did the ku klaux Klan start up anyway? I mean I know they are white Supremacist, but still didn't they ban that sorts of stuff? and how come they are so religious?(1 vote)
- The Ku Klux Klan started based on fear, and grew because that fear connected with racism. You ask how they are "so religious". Well, religion was there, and it was unpopular to drop. So religion was distorted to serve the needs of fear, racism and hatred.(1 vote)
Video transcript
(lively piano music) - [Narrator] We're in
the Motley Study Center, part of the Amistad Center
for Art and Culture, housed in the Wadsworth Atheneum
in Hartford, Connecticut, looking at one of the
most troubling objects that I've ever worked with. This is a robe from the Ku Klux Klan that dates to about 1928. I think in the north we
have this reassuring myth that the Klan is of the south, but this is from Connecticut,
this is from New England. - [Narrator] One of the things
we'd like to remind people is that there was slavery here in Connecticut and then Klan was active here as well and was a significant presence
into the 20th century. - [Narrator] Most of the videos
that Smarthistory focuses on are looking at subjects that are things of beauty, paintings and sculptures that are technically excellent, that are intellectually profound. This is an object that is very different but it is a part of our material culture. It is a part of our history and it is a history of terror
that should not be forgotten. - [Narrator] This came into
the collection pretty recently and there was an intense conversation about why we would have it, what it would mean to
bring it to this collection that is primarily a resource
for celebrating black history and the achievements of African Americans. But this is a collection that
represents the highlights and the struggles of
African Americans and others to push for freedom and
equity across the centuries. And so we have an obligation to celebrate the stories
that are important but also to confront and to challenge. - [Narrator] Maybe it makes
sense to spend a moment giving a quick history
of the Ku Klux Klan. - [Narrator] I certainly think of the Klan and it's earliest moments as being local and tied to the history of enslaved blacks needing to be controlled and managed as a constantly resisting and struggling population of workers. In the years after emancipation
we see the Klan emerge as a force but still a local force. Still doing the work to control people and not thinking of themselves as this vast national conspiracy. - [Narrator] This transformation into a national fraternal order is helped along by Hollywood. - [Narrator] In the late
19th century the images that we have of Klan activity present us with carnival characteristics, people with big puppet heads
or animal heads and furs and that does change as we
get into the 20th century and an important impetus for
that is The Birth of a Nation, the film and the costuming
and the people's realization that that could be appropriated and put to use in daily life. - [Narrator] And so in the
wake of D. W. Griffith's film which is often credited with being the first feature length
film in American history. A film, by the way that was
shown in the White House, a film that enjoyed broad popular acclaim and is often credited
with reviving the Klan and heroizing it, has the effect of creating this national organization of terror. And it is at about this time that the Klan becomes a
centralized organization with centralized control. - [Narrator] Griffith's film
helps to galvanize the NAACP as people are out there
protesting this film and working hard to keep it
from being shown in places. It also perpetuates the myth of rape as the cause of lynching, so lots of activism around that as well. So for black activists and
people who are committed to the civil rights struggle, it is a watershed moment and while we don't think
of it as also giving birth to the Klan costume, it's
also doing that work. - [Narrator] It's important
to remember that the Klan was not only intent on
forcing African Americans as it had so much in the 19th century but was reacting against
the influx of immigrants, especially of Catholics,
of Jews, of Eastern and especially Southern Europeans. But the focus remains
clearly on enforcement against African Americans. It is a movement that
arose against the autonomy that was claimed by
former enslaved peoples. - [Narrator] The Klan at
it's root is definitely a white supremacist project. Whether it's controlling
and dominating people of African descent in the south who were either enslaved
workers or free workers and trying to make sure
that they either stay put or they worked in a certain way or remained poor (laughs)
or lost property. Or whether it's looking at new immigrants, who the Klan did not see as white, showing up to challenge their domination. It's still a white supremacist project. - [Narrator] This robe was
meant to transform it's wearer into a member, into a symbol, into a non-individualized
member of a larger group. I can tell from the
stitching, from the cloth, this was a mass produced
object, meant to be inexpensive and as a result to reach the
widest possible audience. - [Narrator] It's the cheapest model. It's a basic cotton without
a lot of ornamentation. We have seen images of the catalog where you could purchase this piece. It's really smartly designed. - [Narrator] One of the things that it was intended to achieve was to create a sense of
a larger than life figure. And one of the ways that that was created was the addition of the cape to accentuate the breadth of
the shoulders of the wearer. - [Narrator] It gives permission for the person who's wearing it to act outside of societal boundaries, that they no longer need to follow rules, that they can act violently without fear of retribution. - [Narrator] We haven't had this piece in the collection for very long. We've had it on exhibition, it's been a prompt for other institutions around the region that have
had complicated material that they haven't shown,
to bring those things out and have conversations about what it means to have racist material from early 19th century, what it means to have Klan robes and that's been a really
great thing to just learn from each other about
what these things mean to Connecticut history. It's also allowed us to talk about things that we feel we need to
talk about here in Hartford and in Connecticut and to
push us as an institution. And given what's happened in America in the past two to three years, it's been important to think about confronting these bigger questions. So when David Duke gets
to stand on the stage at HBCU in Louisiana as a candidate, given his history with the Klan, it's important that we have a Klan robe in our collection and
we're able to remind people that the things you think you
may remember about the Klan, well these are the things
that we know about the Klan and as people are marching
in Charlottesville and talking about blood
and soil with tiki torches, it's important to have these
artifacts that we can go to and remind people of that history because it's just too easy to forget. (lively piano music)